


Fear and Desperation

by tangelotime



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fantrolls, Fatal Gambit OCT, Gen, Gore, everything is stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 14:05:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangelotime/pseuds/tangelotime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which everyone is a sadist and no one comes out the better for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear and Desperation

 

 

 

 

  
 

 

It was just that the thought was a little unnerving.

Disembowelment via teeth.

Why hadn’t she watched all of the previous matches? There was no fucking way it could have been worse that what her imagination was doing to her now. Right?

Magnia shook off the thought. She couldn’t afford to be distracted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which was exactly what her opponent was apparently doing. He wasn’t paying attention to her at all, muttering something to himself, absently twitching his absurd hair away from the roots that surrounded them, looking overall rather astounded by the swamp. He noticed her stare, and waved at her, giving her a dopey grin. He couldn’t be serious. Was he not taking her seriously? Did he think she was a joke or something?

She narrowed her eyes.

Well, fuck him, too. She’d show him. This was match was going to be good and quick. The rumors were clearly overrated, and she had overestimated him.

The klaxon sounded—it was time to kick some ass.

Immediately, she reached for her strife specibus, curled like a loaded spring, ready to leap into the fight when—

“Woah woah, sis, we don’t have to get straight to the killin’ right away,yo,” the massive hairball said, stumbling a few steps backwards, “I mean there isn’t any reason why we can’t have a little convo before we go try and kill each other.”

The ridiculousness of the request stopped her in her tracks.

“What,” Magnia deadpanned, “I am not going to waste my time chatting up lowblood filth before I slaughter him.”

Kraehe blinked, then threw his head back and laughed.

“Just tryin’ to be friendly, you dirty smear of shitbutter,” he said, and lifting a clawed hand and pulling out his scythe, “But if you wanna fight me so bad—”

“I can’t believe you just called me shitbutter,” Magnia said, and charged.

The chain struck like metal lightning- he stumbled backwards and swatted it away.

The soles of his shoes scrabbled in the swamp muck, and finding no purchase, sent Kraehe crashing into the shallow layer of water that covered everything.

Magnia stepped forward again, seeing an opening, but he swiped upwards with the scythe. She stumbled back. The blade buried itself into the marsh, and he pulled on the shaft of his blade, yanking himself backwards and into a fighting stance.

An expression of consternation crossed Kraehe’s face. He took a step backwards, and then another, and before Magnia realized what he was doing, he spun on the balls of his feet and ran into the swamp, his scythe disappearing into its captchalogue card.

“Wha- what?!?” Magnia sputtered, and took off after him. “Why the fuck do my opponents keep running away from me?!? It’d be flattering if it wasn’t so goddamn annoying.”

Among the fog and the trees, however, it wasn’t long before she lost sight of her quarry.

“Wonderful,” she said. The last time she had to find her opponent in a thick forest left her with broken ribs and she was in no mood to repeat that incident. The offending rib twinged as she looked around, keeping careful watch on her surroundings, making sure to look up.

 Her nerves thrummed. The entire swamp was a menace. The fog, the muck, the endlessly snarled roots that crawled across the arena floor- Magnia gave a mental middle finger to whoever designed the damn place—it was a fucking bitch to track a coward through. It’d be a bitch to fight in too. She was just glad her shoes had decent traction in the swamp.

The vines and other foliage hanging around weren’t exactly compatible with a chainkind specibus either. Magnia grumbled and forged through the swamp. If she had been smart she would have watched the other rounds. So, the logical conclusion was that everyone else did. Her strife specibus would serve her better if she kept them a secret from the rest of this fucking ship. Not to mention she was pretty much incapable of using a couple of them in combat.

She should have probably figured those out before heading into a death battle.

There was a splash.

Magnia snapped to attention, stumbling away a little more noisily than she would have liked. The sounds of shuffling continued at a slow basic pace—Magnia congratulated herself on remaining hidden, then ducked behind a tree. It was her turn to stage an ambush.

That hairy little shit was gonna get a surprise.

 She peeked out from behind her tree—and recoiled violently.

 

 

 

 

Lodnog- or something that shared a startling similarity shambled through the swamp.

“What the hell?” she shouted, pointing. “You’re dead!”

He turned towards her, his blank, sagging eyes meeting hers, and she regretted her outburst immediately. What was she, expecting an answer?? His clothes ripped from trawling the depths of the damned swamp, his skin tinged with a distinctly unhealthy pallor- he was dead alright.

She took a step back, then another, and stared, unbelieving.

This was familiar- her nightmare- and it chilled her. Her heart crawled up her throat.

The corpse lunged, seizing her throat with clammy hands, shrieking. She reeled backwards, a violent jerk back to reality. Time was up.

She twisted away one of the hands that held her neck. She backhanded the zombie, hard, knocking away its other hand.

She planted a foot and surged forward, catching the zombie in the stomach with her knee, sending them both crashing into the water.

Without thinking, she grabbed its head. It bit her, hard, and refused to let go—she refused to scream and twisted hard and snapped the spine.

Magnia jumped up immediately, and sent her foot crashing into its skull, a sickening crack-squish absorbed quickly by the swamp.

She stared at the mangled head, submerged partially under the surface of the water, green blood coating her shoe and leg and slowly dissipating with her own purple into the swamp muck, brains clumping to her heels- she was barely cognizant of the chunk of flesh she was missing from her arm, or the perforations in her side courtesy of the zombie claws she didn’t notice grab her.

She stood there trembling for a moment before saying loudly, “What the fuck?!”

She took a few steps away from the corpse, breathing heavily, then looked wildly around.

“What the hell!?” she shouted into the silent swamp, shaking her blood-coated foot, splashing it in the swamp muck, scraping it against the trees, anything to get rid of zombie guts on her. “WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM??”

“THIS BETTER NOT BE CONTAGIOUS!!” she screamed upwards, shaking her bitten arm in the air. Purple blood splashed her in the face, the wet smacks of her own hue making her blink.

She was hyperventilating. She was hyperventilating and that wasn’t helping at all. It was just a fucking zombie. She forced her breathing to even, turning away from the corpse she just incapacitated, and smacked herself and told herself to calm the fuck down.

She did. Mostly.

She ran. She didn’t just imagine that, did she?? Her arm throbbed. Well she didn’t bite a chunk out of her own arm, that’s for sure.

Was something in the swamp bringing her nightmares to life? Who knew what sort of crazy shit landdwelling psychics could do.

She missed a step, stumbling. Then gritted her teeth and kept running. She refused to believe it. There was no possible way her dreams could be coming true. She refused to believe it was possible.

They must have figured out a way to reanimate corpses. And why not use the fallen contestants? Why not force all the living kids to face what they might possibly become?

Serving as nothing but playthings in a game, obstacles -

 The word triggered a memory-

 

 

 

 

 

 “Aaaargh!!!” Magnia stopped running and pulled her hair in frustration. How thick could she possibly be.

“His name was the Necromancer!!!” she screamed, “How much more obvious does it get?!?”

She kicked a nearby tree, stubbing her toe, and nearly falling backwards into the swamp, only saving herself by grabbing a vine. She seethed.

Taking the invitation to this dumb tournament was probably the worst fucking decision she ever made. What was she even thinking? Now she had to fight her way out. Kill her way out. And all the other contestants would be doing the same.

She wouldn’t stomach the idea of her corpse trudging through the next arena, blindly attacking anything possible.

She was better than all these losers anyway. She’d cut her way through all of these morons if she had to, and she could do it to! It didn’t matter that life and death matches mattered as much on luck as they did skill. She made her own fucking luck, thank you very much. She’d beat them all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her opponent in the last round was no match for her, and her opponent this round wasn’t either. He was certainly proving his worthlessness right now.

In fact, Kraehe was on the other side of swamp, moving away from all the noise she was making, proving himself to be very capable when avoiding loud, angry seadwellers.

He wandered aimlessly, changing directions every so once in a while when Magnia screamed in frustration or fury. She was really making it much too easy.

The swamp was a scary place. He couldn’t see very far, not with all the fog, and his skirt had already soaked up a lot of water, and come to think of it, so had the rest of his clothes and his hair too. He was carrying so much water, it was getting a little difficult to move. He trudged through it, listening to the swish of water around his ankles.

He didn’t want to die, but to do that, he’d have to fight the seadweller chick, and he didn’t want to do that either. The last fight hurt him bad, and he didn’t want to do that again. But he also had to fight if he ever wanted to get out of this scary swamp. It was a bit of a conundrum. Show no fear, right? That was a thing he was supposed to be doing, which he figured he was probably failing. He was plenty scared right now.

He wished he wasn’t in the swamp. A familiar face would be nice. Any face at a—was that Yerman? Kraehe recognized the unmistakable blue tuft of hair and horns, slowly emerging from the depths of the forest.

 

 

 

 

  

“Yo Yerbro!” he called, his face lighting. “I thought you were-”

No wait, he _was_ dead. His opponent had killed him, hadn’t he? Broke his spine and took his arm.

Yerman staggered forward, and Kraehe ran toward him, going to catch him, ask him questions, grab him and drag him out of this creepy-ass swamp, anything. But just as he got close enough to get a glimpse of his friend’s face, something silver flashed from behind, spraying blue, and Yerman fell forward. A foot came down hard on his neck, and a crack snapped through Kraehe’s ears.

“Wha—” he murmured.

Magnia stood over him, panting, covered in yellow, green, blue and purple blood, and wiped her mouth smearing dirt all over. She was covered in swamp muck, but she had finally bandaged her missing chunk of flesh, and she didn’t seem much worse for it.

“Oh, THERE you fucking are!” she spat, pointing a finger at him. “Get over here and fight me you little shit!”

She had killed him. She killed Yerman.

“You killed him!” Kraehe growled, pointing at Yerman’s body.

Magnia glanced down, belatedly recognizing the corpse.

“Oh him too?” she said, “Figures they’d wanna get extra mileage out of all the corpses.”

“You killed him!” Kraehe shouted again. Somehow she failed to comprehend what she had done, and he growled, guttural and low.

“What? Wait,” Magnia took a step back. “Is your thinkpan completely empty?! That zombie was just about to attack you! I should have let it.”

Kraehe stopped, confused. “Zombie?” he asked tentatively.

For some reason, his answer seemed to displease Magnia.

“Wait, was that your first zombie?!” she yelled, kicking the surface scum. “Fucking hell! I killed THREE of them, and you haven’t done SHIT?!”

 “Oh… that means he was dead then I guess,” Kraehe murmured. Her sudden anger surprised him.

“NO SHIT!” Magnia shrieked, and stormed forward, ripping the dart her chain out of the rotting corpse of the zombie, spraying blue.

“Oh motherfuck,” Kraehe said. Right. Death match. Still happening.

She grabbed the dart and threw it at his head. He swatted it away with a flick of the scythe. He took a step forward and swung.

She grabbed her chain and blocked it. Pain momentarily seared in her hands as the links scraped across her palms. She wasn’t safe yet- the wicked blade was still behind her.

He shifted and she ducked, the blade whizzing over her head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a clatter- her chain had gotten caught in the scythe. She had to move first or he’d disarm her. She kicked the blade, forcing it upward and yanked. He stumbled.

Magnia swung, freeing the chain and flinging the dart at his head as he caught himself. The scythe whirled. It sliced through her back and knocked her to the side. The blade was behind her again.

She looked up. He reeled backwards, nose broken. She had hit. She spun, holding her chain against the curved blade and kicked backwards. He crashed into the swamp, his scythe falling at her feet.

She attacked again. The chain whipped around his head and smacked his nose, then caught on his horn. He staggered backwards, disoriented. She yanked, sending him spinning into the swamp.

The stale water splashed into his mouth and he choked. He reached for something to pull him back to mostly dry land. Something twisted his neck, yanking his scalp.

A snarl of hair lay tangled in Magnia’s chain, in Magnia’s hand, her face twisted.

Then she tossed the dart upwards and wrenched her chain back and sprayed cranberry red.

He screamed, flailing, clutching at his patch of missing scalp. Blood seeped through his fingers. She shook the hair from her chain, disgusted, and stepped forward.

He shrieked again, a frightened animal, scrambling forward, turning to face it, his heart beating his ribcage for the freedom to run, she swung-

 

 

 

 

And she stopped.

He stared at her. She was trembling.

She stared straight back, not quite seeing him, her face frozen. It was odd, seeing the little angry bitch look so scared. It was refreshing.

His head was throbbing with pain, his nose ached, but he was adjusting to it, sort of, and the raw edge of the fear and pain was abating with the envelopment of temporary relief.  It pushed him to a new level of- of something. His bloodpusher gave a triumphant throb.

He felt like laughing. He felt like screaming. He felt invincible. His hands were clammy.

He gave a sidelong glance at his opponent. She was filthy and covered with blood-  not all of it hers. She mentioned fighting other zombies. He was fresher than her.  And she was afraid. A near invisible tremor shook her hands, the corners of her mouth tightened imperceptibly. She swallowed nervously. He drank it in, glorying, reveling in the stark fear she couldn’t quite hide.

“Awww, look at you,” he purred, “Look at the proud little princess quake in her slippers.”

“Wha-what the fuck did you do?!” Magnia shouted. She had found her voice. “What the hell was that?!”

He rocked back and forth and suddenly shot up to his feet, grinning maniacally, looming, and Magnia staggered backwards. Her heart pounded a staccato beat in her ears.

Where was all this coming from? She had him on the ground. She almost had him dead, but that thing. She got distracted, or something. She was trembling because of blood loss, she was hyperventilating because she was tired and she wasn’t rationalizing anything. She had lost ground- she could still make up for it! He was getting too close. She doubled her chain.

“Scared, ar-”

Magnia struck, smacking him across the face with her doubled chain, knocking him aside. He stumbled, and she jammed a foot against his shoulder and kicked him away as she jumped back.

A snarl escaped him. His eyes were red. He shrieked, something not quite troll like, and charged headlong, claws extended.

She backpedaled, but he was fast. She lashed out again with her chain, but he took the hit without flinching. He lunged and seized her wrist, yanking it out of her grasp and tossing it far behind him. She twisted and kicked him in the ribs. There was a pop. He grimaced and lunged. She ducked and spun away, freeing herself.

Weariness weighed on her limbs already, her breathing was heavy and labored, and her injuries were more severe than his. She trembled. She couldn’t keep doing this, especially not without her weapon!

Weapons, weapons, she had more didn’t she??

He flung himself forward, and seized her bitten arm. His claws prodded into the injured flesh. She cried out and grabbed her arm. She kicked him and he staggered backwards, pulling her with him.

They stumbled, and tripped and she landed on top of him.

She got in one good punch before he grabbed her shoulder and rolled on top of her, snarling.

Her back hit the water and the wounds in her side stung. She tried to push herself up but he shoved her back down into the swamp.  Mud slid into her mouth as she gasped and she choked on it.

Panic surged, and she punched him in the throat. He recoiled, then snarled again. He seized the offending wrist and slammed it down next to her, impaling her palm with two long claws for good measure.

 

 

 

 

 

She screamed and thrashed, but he stayed on top of her. His skirt tangled her legs and he was carrying too much water weight. 

She panicked. Purple blood dissipated into the swamp muck. Her breath rattled in her throat as she struggled to breathe, half submerged in dead water.

He held her there, grinning at her useless struggle, at the fear lining every curve of her face.

Eventually she slowed. Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes. It just hurt too much.

“Why-why haven’t you just killed me?” she snapped.

“Why?” he asked, cocking his head, “You wanna die?”

“Well one of us has to!”

He dug his fingers further into her wounds and she squirmed. A strangled cry escaped her.

“I dunno,” Kraehe said plainly, “I’ll get to it, probably. Ain’t anything you can do here anyway. ‘Sides, you’re interesting.”

She lay back in the water and gave a strangled laugh.

“This is so messed up.”

Was there something she could do? It was easier to grapple with panic and _think_ when death was less imminent.

Kraehe twitched his fingers again, and she jerked and whined.

“Yo, Magnia, I wanna ask you a thing,” he said, “Cause you know, the crystals and we have one! Well two now, I think and-”

“I don’t give a shit!”

A pen dropped into her hand.

“I’m doing you a fucking favor here,” he bit back, “Just listen to me you motherfuckin’ moro-“

She dug the blunt tip into the wrist that held her, drawing pinpricks of red blood.

“Ow! Fucker!”

He shoved her arms down further into the muck but she forced herself upwards and smashed her forehead onto Kraehe’s broken nose.

He let go, hands automatically flying to cover his nose. Her impaled hand followed, dragged along, and scratched his face while a hammer replaced the pen.

He pulled her hand aside again and lunged, fastening his teeth into her collar. She let loose a bloodcurdling scream and swung downward.

She hit him twice, and there was a sickening crunch-squish as the back of his head caved in, spraying blood.

The entire weight of his body crashed down, knocking the wind out of her. His body settled around hers.  It was very warm.

She reached up and tried to pry his jaw off her neck, but one hand was still incapacitated and the other was shaking too badly. It was silent in the swamp.

Magnia burst into hysterical sobs and waited for the pain to stop.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yup.
> 
> That's it.
> 
> Epilogue for this chapter maybe? hmmmm naaaaaaaah
> 
> Anyway, here are stash links for all the art, cause when i do stuff this way i dont get to make snarky comments on my pages. And explanations and stuff. That's there too.
> 
> http://sta.sh/01ud1c2hkl9s
> 
> http://sta.sh/02cuh7lj7zuy
> 
> http://sta.sh/08lt3tain5h
> 
> http://sta.sh/01l538esvyhc
> 
> http://sta.sh/0f8j56mcgjl
> 
> http://sta.sh/02f0lyzsbzah
> 
> http://sta.sh/015vk2b63syb
> 
> http://sta.sh/043ru2dn6qq
> 
> http://sta.sh/01afnx2w5ler
> 
> http://sta.sh/08jzu8xvlkg
> 
> these may end up on dA someday, but that day is not today


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